Pressure Valve

"These are private words addressed to you in public." -- T.S. Eliot

Monday, August 11, 2003

I am touched by the Lipscombs' continuing confusion over a name for baby Dumpling, and would like to offer a suggestion. I just finished reading "God's Secretaries," about the story behind the King James translation of the Bible, and was particularly interested in the names used by hardcore Puritans during the Jacobean period. The Puritans took the Old Testament very seriously, especially the parts that explained the meanings of the names given to various personages. (For instance, "Immanuel" means "God-With-Us.") Thus, they insisted that a proper English translation of the Bible would use the translations instead of the name itself.

Unfortunately, this caught on in the naming of children. We're talking about names that go far beyond "Charity," "Hope," "Faith" and so on. These are actual names of Puritan children: